Heaven and Hell (63 page)

She wondered why long speeches were necessary. The issue seemed clear enough. Johnson's authority had been challenged by the various Reconstruction bills, including the provocative Tenure of Office Act, which effectively denied the Chief Executive the power to remove cabinet officers whom the Senate had confirmed. On this issue Johnson had dug in, to force a test.

Virgilia thought that that was not only valid but also necessary.

Further, Edwin Stanton was Lincoln's appointee, not Johnson's, and it was in Lincoln's term, not Johnson's, that the Senate had consented to the appointment. She thought there was a strong argument that Stanton was actually outside the Tenure of Office jurisdiction.

Lengthy summations began. She heard the one by William S.

Groesbeck, an eloquent Cincinnati attorney. He spoke to the subject of Johnson's character:

"He is a patriot. He may be full of error, but he loves his country.

* have often said that those who lived in the North, safely distant from

"te war, knew little of it. We who lived on the border knew more . . .

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our horizon was always red with its flames, and it sometimes burned so near we could feel its heat on our outstretched hands. Andrew Johnson of Tennessee lived in the heart of the conflagration ... in the very furnace of war . . . and his tempered strength kept him steadfastly loyal to the Union . . . impervious to treason. How can he then be suddenly transformed, in the words of the gentleman from Massachusetts, Mr.

Boutwell, to the arch-demon? It is ludicrous."

At the managers' table, George S. Boutwell glared.

On and on they went, accusing, defending, interpreting, theorizing.

Occasionally fist fights broke out in the gallery, and the trial would be stopped while ushers removed the combatants. The atmosphere in the gilt-and-marble chamber grew more and more charged with emotion, until Virgilia began to feel she was no longer in the United States, but in some Roman arena. The difference was that the victim to be sacrificed had not made even a single appearance. Johnson had organized a staff of runners to report each new development.

The Roman analogy proved especially apt the day the Honorable Mr. Williams, manager from Pennsylvania, attacked the accused:

"If you acquit him you affirm all his imperial pretensions and decide that no amount of usurpation will ever be enough to bring a chief magistrate to justice. That will be a victory over all of you here assembled.

A victory to celebrate the exultant ascent of Andrew Johnson to the Capitol, dragging not captive kings but a captive Senate at his chariot wheels."

Men jumped up in the gallery, some cheering, some protesting.

Chief Justice Chase needed four minutes to restore order. Virgilia saw faces red with indignation, and she saw others that made her think of predators--predators who fed on every accusation, no matter how outrageous.

Suddenly,

on the far side of the gallery, she was startled to spy two other faces overlooked before. Her brother Stanley and his wife Isabel.

Virgilia no longer had contact with them; no invitations to dine at I Street, no birthday greetings, nothing. She often heard Stanley's name in the city, sometimes not in a flattering way.

Isabel glanced at Virgilia with no recognition. Stanley was absorbed in matters on the floor. How puffy he looked, Virgilia thought.

Older than his forty-five years. His skin had an unhealthy, jaundiced coloration.

Williams eyed the quieting gallery. He raised his voice:
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"If indeed the miscreant returns like a conqueror in Roman triumph, I can predict what will follow. A return of the Rebel officeholders whom he favors, and a general convulsion of their states, casting loose The Year of the Locust 399

your Reconstruction laws and delivering over the whole theater of past conflict into anarchy, injustice, and ruin."

Again members of the crowd surged up, yelling and waving handkerchiefs.

Virgilia sat in sad silence. In her view the managers had proved nothing, except that they wanted Johnson's blood before he ever came to trial, and would have it whether he was guilty or not.

The session recessed. On the packed staircase, Virgilia came upon Stanley leaning against the wall and mopping his yellowish face with a large kerchief. She stopped on the step above, trying to shield him from the buffeting crowd.

"Stanley?" she said over the noise. She tugged his sleeve. "I saw you earlier. Are you all right?"

"Virgilia. Oh--yes, perfectly fine." He seemed remote, eyeing the people pushing past her down the stairs. "And you?"

"Well enough. But I'm worried about you, Stanley. You look ill.

It's been so long since we talked, and there are so many unkind stories afloat."

"Stories?" He jerked back like a felon threatened with handcuffs.

"What sort of stories?"

She smelled the clove he'd chewed. To hide what other odor?

"Stories about the things you do to hurt yourself. Great long drinking sprees--"

"Lies." He leaned his sweaty forehead against the marble, gasping.

"Damn lies."

Grieving for him, and for his own lie, she touched his sleeve. "I hope so. You're a prominent man, enormously wealthy and successful.

You have everything now."

"Perhaps I don't deserve it. Perhaps I'm not proud of what I am.

Did you ever think of that?"

The blurted words stunned her. Stanley guilt-ridden? Why?

From behind, someone seized her shoulder. Virgilia was nearly
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toppled off balance; if she'd fallen, those pouring from the gallery might have trampled her.

Not four inches from Virgilia's nose, Isabel's long, horselike face seemed to inflate with rage. "Leave him alone, you mongrel slut. Stanley is tired, that's all. We have nothing to say to you. Stand aside."

Like an officer disciplining a private, she took hold of her husband's arm and thrust him down the stairs. She elbowed and pushed to open a path. Stanley was unsteady. He glanced back at his sister with a swift look of apology. At the landing, he and Isabel disappeared.

Virgilia thought she'd never seen her brother look so bad, so tortoented.

Why should great success cost him so dearly? she wondered again.

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The summations concluded in the first week in May. By then all of Washington was charged, and changed, by the trial. Some called it the majestic working of justice. Others called it a saturnalia, a circus.

Police routinely broke up fights that erupted over the trial. Gamblers poured into the city on every train, crowding the hotels and taking wagers on the verdict. When Chief Justice Chase closed the doors on Monday, May ii, and the court went into private session, the odds favored acquittal.

In the Star and other papers, Sam Stout had announced that the gamblers were wrong. Thirty-one votes for conviction on at least one article were firm, he said. Six more would tilt in favor of conviction by the end of the week.

On Thursday, Stevens sought refuge at the orphanage. "The damned press won't let me alone. My own constituents won't either." He looked even more tired than he had the last time he'd come.

"How is the vote?" she asked, pouring him hot herb tea. His veined, age-spotted hands shook as he tried to lift the cup. He gave up.

"Thirty-five certain. It hinges upon one man."

"Who?"

"Senator Ross."

"Edmund Ross of Kansas? He's a strong abolitionist."

"Was," Stevens corrected, with distaste. "Ross insists he'll vote his conscience, even though people in Kansas are deluging him with
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telegrams saying he's finished if he votes acquittal. Senator Pomeroy's hammering him. So is the Union Congressional Committee." That body of Radical senators and representatives had been organized to send messages to local party organizations urging them to pressure undecided senators. "Ross has even received threats against his life," Stevens added.

"He isn't alone."

With exhausted eyes, he stared at Virgilia. "We must sway Ross.

We must, or it's all been for nothing, and the Bourbons will recapture the South."

"You mustn't take the verdict quite so seriously, Thad. Your life doesn't depend on it."

"But it does, Virgilia. If we fail, I'm through. I don't have the heart or the strength to fight such a battle again."

On Saturday, the sixteenth of May, four days before the Republican convention, Virgilia awoke well before dawn, unable to sleep. She dressed and left the cottage in which Stout had once kept her; she'd thought of moving, to rid herself of memories the place aroused. But it T

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was hers, it was comfortable, and she was able to afford it on her orphanage wage.

She walked through a silent section where the homes grew smaller and poorer. Soon she reached the orphanage. Surprisingly, she found the front door unlocked. She smelled coffee as she walked to the kitchen.

He was seated at the table.

"Scipio. Why are you up?"

"Couldn't sleep. I'm glad you're here. We must talk. I'm supposed to deliver Lewis to his new foster parents in Hagerstown this morning."

"I remember." She accepted a mug of coffee from the enameled pot. His amber hand brushed hers. He reacted as if burned.

"I'd feel better if you didn't go to the Capitol," he said.

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"I must. I want to hear the verdict."

"It could be dangerous. Huge crowds. Possibly a riot."

"It's good of you to be concerned, but I'll be fine. You mustn't worry."

He walked around the table and stood gazing down at her. The words seemed to tear from him. "But I do. Far more than you know."

Their eyes held. Shaken, feeling a torrent of response, she slammed the coffee mug on the wooden table and dashed out. She was unable to deal with the emotions revealed so unexpectedly in him, and in her own heart.

"That's thirty-four," whispered the stranger on Virgilia's left. "I mark Waitman Willey of West Virginia probable. So it's up to Ross."

Hisses from those nearby silenced the man, who went on scribbling and rechecking his tally on a scrap of paper. Before the roll call, George Williams of Oregon had moved that the first vote be taken on the final article, the omnibus, because if that passed, so would the others.

The change in order was approved.

Chief Justice Chase spoke. "Mr. Senator Ross, how say you? Is the respondent, Andrew Johnson, President of the United States, guilty or not guilty of a high misdemeanor as charged in this article?"

He stood there a moment, the unprepossessing man from Kansas.

Union veteran and old-line abolitionist, he was currently campaigning for removal of the Indian tribes by force. Virgilia watched Thad Stevens S1t forward at the managers' table, white with strain.

1 Ross cleared his throat.

"How say you?" Chase repeated.

"Not guilty."

A roar in the gallery. Then wild applause, loud booing, handker 402 HEAVEN AND HELL

chiefs waved, a sea of whipping white. Stevens slumped back, eyes shut. One arm lolled limply over the arm of his chair.

Virgilia knew the vote was a watershed. The Congress had tried to exert its primacy over the executive and, a moment ago, the effort failed. No matter what else transpired, Radical Reconstruction was over.

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Thad Stevens had predicted it would be so if the vote went against impeachment. Stevens's body, slumped in his chair, said it again, unequivocally.

On

the Capitol steps, people screamed, danced, hugged one another.

A beefy man in a derby caught Virgilia's arm. "Old Andy twisted their tail. That's worth a kiss to celebrate."

His mouth swooped toward her while a hand stole up to her breast.

Those capering around them paid no attention. Virgilia twisted aside, but she was trapped. "Ain't you for Andy?" the man growled, pulling her.

"You drunken sot, leave her alone."

Virgilia recognized his voice before she saw him. The beefy man shouted, "No damn nigger can tell me--" Then Scipio's hand caught him by the throat, holding him until he gagged.

The revelers kept yelling, pushing, tilting bottles, dancing on the steps. Scipio released the beefy man. He fled as fast as the crowd would allow.

"What about Hagerstown?" Virgilia exclaimed above the noise.

"I postponed it. I couldn't let you risk this mob alone. Thinking about it kept me from sleeping, or eating anything--"

Behind him, people staggered and pushed. He was thrown against her. She raised her hands to arrest his forward motion and found herself holding him. A white woman, a mulatto man. In the tumult, no one cared.

He put his mouth close to her ear. "This is an easy place to tell you I've come to admire you. I've watched you and watched you with the children. You're a gentle, loving woman. Intelligent, principled--"

She wanted to tell him of all the evil things in her past. Something stronger, something life-giving, crushed the impulse. People can change.

"Beautiful, too," Scipio Brown said with his lips at her ear. She denied it with a nervous laugh. He was amused. "Does all this really come as such a great surprise?"

"I had some hint." She kept fighting against the buffeting of her back. "I saw the looks you gave me. But there are too many things against it, Scipio, not the least of them color. There's my age." A hand strayed to her graying hair. "I'm ten years older."

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"Why should that bother you? It doesn't bother me. I love you, Virgilia. I have the buggy waiting. Come with me."

"Where?"

For a moment he seemed less than his assured adult self. He seemed shy, hesitant. But he managed to say, "I thought--if you weren't unwilling--could we be alone at your house?"

Her eyes grew damp. It was overwhelming, the idea of someone caring for her this much. Yet she knew a similar emotion had been stirring in her, beneath the levePof thought, for a long time. She hadn't dared recognize it, or name it, till now.